Police in western Kenya have arrested a self-proclaimed preacher who recently said he wanted to meet President William Ruto to deliver a prophetic message.
Joseph Chenge of Jerusalem Mowar Church was arrested on Wednesday evening alongside 11 members of his church in Ruri village, Homa Bay county.
Homa Bay criminal investigations officer Abed Kavoo said they were holding Mr Chenge in suspicion of promoting questionable religious teachings.
Mr Kavoo said preliminary investigations had revealed that the cleric was detaining sick people at his church in the guise of praying for them. Five patients were rescued from the preacher’s church, local media reported.
Police said Chenge’s church operations were illegal, as it was not registered. The preacher and the arrested members of his church are due to appear in court on Thursday.
On Sunday, Mr Chenge told journalists that something unfortunate may happen to the country if he failed to meet President Ruto within 21 days.
The arrest of the western Kenya preacher comes amid a crackdown on suspicious churches in Kenya, following the death of more than 200 in a doomsday cult in coastal Kilifi county.
The arrest comes at a time when two Kenyan preachers have appeared in separate courts, accused of encouraging their followers to harm themselves to meet Jesus. Kenyan authorities have exhumed the bodies of more than 100 people, with postmortems on 10 of them showing they died from starvation and lack of oxygen.
Pastors Paul Mackenize and Ezekiel Odero appeared in court to answer charges that they allegedly killed their followers by urging them to fast to death in order to meet Jesus.
Mackenize and his accomplice were re-arrested after a judge in the town of Malindi declared that the court could not rule on terrorism charges preferred by the prosecution.